


pillars of salt, pillars of sand

by pantsless



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Future Fic, Not really though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:32:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantsless/pseuds/pantsless
Summary: Max doesn’t know this, but in another universe, when Woodes Rogers defied his wife’s wishes, Eleanor had died. Rogers didn’t listen and Eleanor died and Max, grieving, angry, bereft, sailed to Boston to plot his demise.(In this story, Eleanor lives.)The pirates lose, Rogers wins, and Eleanor lives, but Max is still angry.--AU from 4x06. Self-indulgent trash where Eleanor lives and Rogers stays governor, and Max is there for all of it. Max and Eleanor centric.





	pillars of salt, pillars of sand

**Author's Note:**

> i had a lot of feelings about Eleanor dying and how the show ended and this is what happened. sorry

Max doesn’t know this, but in another universe, when Woodes Rogers defied his wife’s wishes, Eleanor had died. Rogers didn’t _listen_ and Eleanor _died_ and Max, grieving, angry, bereft, sailed to Boston to plot his demise.

 

In this story, Max convinces the men in the fort to send out a rescue party. Where exasperated reasoning fails, she issues threats and reminders. Uses the Governor's name, which as it turns out, still means something. Sometimes fear is the only way to motivate cowards. But that is not so important, Max thinks.

 

The important thing is this: Max reaches Eleanor on time. 

 

(Eleanor meets no Spanish raiders, no burning houses, no slow deaths in the dirt as fearsome pirate captains hold her.

 

In this story, Eleanor lives.)

 

The pirates lose, Rogers wins, and Eleanor lives, but Max is still angry.

 

\--

 

The bargain struck with the pirates is effectively annulled, but neither Flint nor Eleanor have any real desire to kill each other – strangely, neither does the rebel princess – and they part ways without blows.

 

(The Spanish soldiers their party encounters are given pause when they see two dozen redcoats armed to the teeth, and deterred altogether when Eleanor informs them that she is the Governor's wife.)

 

So they ride back towards the fort, through the smoldering remains of Nassau and its inhabitants, the detritus that Spanish raiders have left behind. Eleanor’s jaw hasn’t unclenched since Max first brought her the news of Spain on Nassau’s shores. Max remembers that she wasn’t here when the Spanish last came, but Eleanor was.

 

(A lifetime ago, in the dark of their room at the brothel as Max tucked herself into Eleanor’s shoulder, Eleanor had told her. Told her about the loss of her mother, and the dark-skinned girl she had considered a sister.)

 

She wonders if Eleanor had told the Governor this too.

 

(Probably not, Max thinks, otherwise he would never have set the Spanish loose.)

 

The Governor is waiting back at the fort, and Max watches as he runs to fold her in his arms, lips heavy with apologies and eyes closed in relief. Something in Eleanor loosens, just a little. But – and Max is not so sure if this is true or she is imagining this – her posture seemed stiffer than usual, their embrace cooler and briefer than previous reunions Max has witnessed.

 

(She remembers, for instance, that time after they'd lost Jack Packham and the cache; the way Eleanor had rushed to the Governor's side, leaving Max standing alone in the middle of the street. Eleanor's voice wassharp and anxious as she fussed over his wounds and shouted for a doctor.)

 

Max observes, considers, assesses, but she is not fool enough to think that she watches out of purely professional interest.

 

The next day, the Governor, with Spain’s help, sets sail the next day in pursuit of the pirates. Spain and England unite to deal civilisation’s definitive answer to all those who rail against it: join or die.

 

Flint’s pirate-slave rebellion is put down at last. All resistance is dead, captured, or scattered to the high seas. The treasure is retrieved and returned, and Spain is finally appeased.

 

And so the Governor returns to rule Nassau, his wife by his side.

  

\--

 

In the other world where Woodes Rogers fought the pirates and lost everything, Max eventually found her way back to Nassau. Quietly kept it spinning, kept it prosperous.

 

This Nassau, peaceful and thoroughly England's once again, is not so different, but also not quite the same.

 

In this Nassau the Governor is more than just a figurehead with the right skin colour and a cock, and he keeps his own books.

 

But in any Nassau, a Negress on a Governor’s council is still too much for civilisation to bear. Max understands this now. And so she plays her role from the shadows. She retains the street, her influence, and access to the Governor, and helps him keep the colony afloat.

 

Eleanor’s position is more precarious. The Governor may have won the obeisance of the men who once called themselves pirates, but these men have not forgotten the days when Mistress Guthrie lorded over Nassau, or Charles Vane’s body hanging in the street. She might be the Lady Rodgers now, but behind her back, Nassau still calls her _cunt._

 

A year ago, Eleanor wouldn't have cared less (and Max had loved her for it). This Eleanor, however, seems to.

  

While the Governor hosts meetings with emissaries and lords and merchants by day, Eleanor sits with their ladies in the sitting room as they bend over their needlework or sip at their tea.

 

Eleanor  _is_ present for their meetings after dark, when the Governor summons Max to the mansion for assistance or information. But she sits in a chair _with her needlework_ , fingers defter now, quick and sure movements that she seems to glean much pleasure from.

 

("Playing the part," Eleanor had called it, when Max first called her out on her new preoccupation with the needle while they sat under a fort, stowed away with the other women and children.)

 

But this, Max thinks, as she watches Eleanor stroll through the market, _this_ is something else entirely. 

 

Eleanor’s belly is round with child as she makes small talk with the townspeople, smiling and laughing along graciously. By the looks of it, the fruit seller she is currently talking to has noticed as well. As Max approaches, the older woman is pressing a basket of fruit in Eleanor’s hands.

 

“A gift,” the woman says, “for the Governor’s new baby.”

 

“Oh, you mustn’t! Here, let me pay you for it –”

 

“No, please, ma’am, I insist,” and the woman is smiling with something like goodwill. Perhaps Eleanor’s position is no longer as precarious as before.

 

Eleanor acquiesces, ducking her head and thanking the fruit seller with a smile as she hands the basket to her lady in waiting.

 

“So it seems a congratulations is in order,” Max cuts in. Eleanor stops midstep, surprised, but sees Max and smiles.

 

“Thank you,” and this time the smile is smaller (and more genuine, Max thinks). Eleanor continues walking down the street, Max abreast.

 

“How far along are you?”

 

“Oh, just about four months. The Doctor says I’m to be due next January,” Eleanor replies, as she picks up a tomato at the next stall, smiling at the next merchant. He smiles back as well.

 

“These tomatoes look lovely, Mr. Black. The weather seems to be doing wonders for the harvest,” Eleanor offers pleasantly.

 

Max blinks, because this person is decidedly _not_ Eleanor Guthrie.

 

( _Eleanor Rodgers,_ whispers a voice, unbidden, in the back of her mind. _Her name is_ Eleanor Rodgers _now_.) 

 

It is irrational, it is childish, Max knows, but there is a stranger inhabiting the body of a woman she _knows_  so well, and she cannot bite down what comes out of her mouth next.

 

“And how long have you been doing _this_?”

 

Eleanor is distracted, her attention divided between Max and the vegetable cart, but at the edge in Max’s tone she glances up. “Doing what?”

 

Max gives her a dark look. Eleanor sighs, turns away from the stall and moves along. When she speaks next, her voice is low and calm.

 

“News of the Governor’s new child will cheer the people. Give them normalcy. We all have to move on,” Eleanor does not look at her as she says this, and her face undisturbed, like a placid lake. Somehow this aggravates Max even more.

 

“Normalcy is peace. Normalcy is commerce. Normalcy does not require all of... _this_.”

 

Eleanor slows to a halt, pauses before she replies.

 

“You and I are both invested in the stability and success of this place,” her words are more pointed now, but still measured, “and that depends on the consolidation of my husband’s authority here. I am his _wife_ ; I must be seen as such."

 

Max says nothing, because of course Eleanor is right (and Max hates her for it.)

 

Eleanor lets out a sigh. "You know as well as I do that it's for the best," a beat, and then she continues, almost like an afterthought. "For Nassau. For us all."

 

When Eleanor starts moving again, Max doesn't follow. She watches Eleanor walk away, a lady-in-waiting – but not the slim, red-haired one, and Max idly wonders what happened to her – and two redcoats trailing behind her.

   

Max remembers what Eleanor had said, in the wake of quiet apologies and whispered could-have-beens, that Nassau could never be everything they wanted it to be.

 

Perhaps it is true. Perhaps this Nassau has no room for Eleanor Guthrie. In her stead, Eleanor Rodgers smiles politely and laughs graciously and makes small talk with street hawkers. 

 

Once, with the rebellion at their gates and the future uncertain, and they had sat inside a musty old fort as the world changed above them, Max had told Eleanor she feared they would recognise neither the new world nor their new selves.

 

This Nassau, she understands, recognises, despite everything. This Eleanor, she cannot. 

 

(That night, when she visits Georgia at the brothel, she doesn’t go there to be fucked. She throws the girl down on the bed and fucks her until she screams.

 

Twists her hands in her long blonde hair, palms her small breasts. Takes her hard, angry, demanding, makes her beg. Does not think of Eleanor.)

 

 _It's for the best_ , Eleanor had said, and maybe she was right.

 

(Leaves unsatisfied.)

 

\--

 

 

 


End file.
